Fairy Tales and other Lies
by The-glass-paperweight
Summary: Cath does not believe in fairy tales. And most of all, she does not believe in fairy-tale princes. Not anymore. Steve does not like sleeping on marshmallows. And the world he lives in is not the same. Both are separated by three meters of worn linoleum floor and four centimeter thick front doors. And a little thing called commitment phobia.
1. Prologue

**Prologue: Once upon a time...**

"Thereupon the wedding of the King's Son and the Sleeping Beauty was celebrated in all splendor, and-"

"... they lived happily ever after," finished the blond girl with curly hair and sea-blue eyes the fairy tale told by her mother. Her eyes shone like only those of a child could and she put her little hands dreamily on her cheeks. "I wish that one day a noble prince would save me and then we would get married in a beautiful castle and everyone would be happy."

"Well, I hope you do not have to sleep for a hundred years to achieve that." The blond girls sister nudged her in the side and made a funny face at her. The older girl's hazelnut brown hair fell confusedly over her forehead as her mother playfully stroked it and added in shock: "And all of us with her."

"Oh, you're stupid." The blond girl huffed, letting her bangs fly for a second, then rolled closer to her sister on the soft bed mattress, so that they were both lying side by side. "I know Cath is dreaming about it, too."

"Oh, yes?" The older sister raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Yes. Of a noble knight in shining armor, who protects you from all danger and is always there for you." The blond girl chuckled, seeing the face of her older sister, whose cheeks now had a delicate shade of red. "Look Mom, Cath is blushing."

The young woman gazed amusedly down at her two daughters, lying close together on one bed in their pajamas, one still giggling, the other glaring angrily at her sister. "Enough for today, you two. Time to go to bed."

She carefully folded the old storybook and put it back among the other books on the shelf as the brown-haired girl climbed off her sister's bed and laid herself in her own. The white blanket made a cozy rustle as she stuck her slender feet underneath it.

"Mom?" The younger sister had already pulled her blanket up to her chin, holding a blue fabric rabbit in her small fists. "Can fairy tales really come true?"

The hopeful gleam in her eyes made the young mother smile and she sat down on the edge of her daughters bed. Carefully, she brushed one of her blond curls from the girl's face and answered in a soft voice: "Maybe not as we hope. But there is one thing fairy tales give us that we can always believe in." She raised her eyes and looked over to her first-born daughter, who was also listening to her mother's soft words. "That in the end everything will always be okay."

With that, the young woman leaned forward and blew a kiss on her daughter's forehead, before she got up again and put her hand onto the light switch next to the door. "Good night, you two."

"Good night."

The warm, yellow glow of the corridors light faded slowly, until it was only a thin line on the wooden floor of the bedroom, which was first filled with the irregular rustle of the bedspreads and pillows and then finally lay in perfect peace.

The blond girl pulled her blanket even deeper into her face and put her head to one side. For a while she stared motionless into the darkness she knew her sister was lying in her bed in. Then: "Cath?"

A muffled hum came out of the blackness in front of her. "What is it, Lizzy?"

"We do not want to leave each other," the former whispered this sentence, as she often did after the two sisters had read the fairy tale Snow-White and Rose-Red. It had become kind of a secret sentence, that has united the two of them like an invisible bond. And for the little girl it seemed to be exceptionally important at the moment that her sister completed this quote before going to sleep.

A devoted rustling hinted that the older sister also had put her head in her direction. The words were just a soft murmur over the hem of her blanket and yet they could not have sounded louder and safer to the blonde girl:

"Not as long as we live."


	2. Dresses and other Entanglements

**Dresses and other Entanglements**

"Please shoot me. Right. Now."

I'm still staring incrediously at the fine fabric in my hands that feels more like the purest sandpaper in my fingers than anything else (scratchy and just like something your skin shouldn't get in touch with. Like at all).

In a trance, I get up to look at this _thing_ in full size.

The hem of the dress in my hands slides like a snake over the top of the white box on the table I just pulled it out of and stays in midair at the level of my knees. My fingertips hold the narrow straps at an arm's length away from me. I'm pretty sure these two thin ribbons should not be the part of the dress making sure that this thing stays on my body the whole time. The fabric to which they are attached to is slightly gathered around the chest area and falls smoothly down from the waist. To make matters even worse, some kind of fabric flower, made of the same material as the dress and seemingly winking at me ironically, sits enthroned on the top right seam of the fabric. Why not just put a button there, saying: ''Caution: cheesy ''?

I do not even want to start with the color of this dress. It probably has its own, very individual color code. Such as the ones they come up with for wall paints in the hardware store. I'm thinking of something like Orchid-Pink. Or Midsummer-Dream-Pink. Or how-to-best-humiliate-my-sister-slash-bridesmaid-on-my-wedding-magenta.

"Wow ... is that it?"

I lower the dress from my field of vision and see my roommate standing in the doorway of the bathroom, a blue towel wrapped around her head like a hood, and a hint of a grin on her lips.

Puffing, I turn the front of the dress in her direction, repeating the words I just said: "Please shoot me."  
Terry lets her gaze wander over the dress in front of me. I know exactly when her eyes get stuck on the pink fabric flower, as her mouth twitches wildly at the sight.

"No, I'm not going to do that, Cath." Grinning, she walks past me toward the kitchen and hauls herself onto one of the front counter chairs. "Otherwise you'll miss your little sister's wedding."

The blue towel slips back a little at her words and she pushes it carefully back over her forehead. A little further and I would not have to see her nasty grin anymore.

I do not know if it's my dark side or the dress talking, but the way she's sitting on the high chair, the towel on her head, she looks like E.T., the alien.

No, that was mean ... and inappropriate.

E.T.'s towel is white and not blue.

"Gloating doesn't fit you," I grumble as I pack the dress back into the box with more care than I think it deserves.  
Terry reaches across the counter for the 'Froot Loops' box and drops a handful of the cereals into her cereal bowl. "It's not that bad. Actually, I think it's pretty nice. "

Pretty nice?

"It's pink," I say, staring at her in consternation, demonstratively pushing the white cardboard box in her direction, as if I had not held the full extent of the catastrophe out for her to see ten seconds ago.

"Old pink." Terry.

... what should one answer to that?

My roommate tilts the rest of the milk into her bowl before she puts the empty bottle next to the fridge and gives me a knowing look. "Come on, Cath. If it were up to you, this dress would probably be black. And you just don't attend weddings in black."

One to zero for Terry. Although I really do not understand why black was so frowned upon at weddings. Most of the male guests wear black suits. Shouldn't they dress in old pink?

Frustrated, I fall back into the chair next to the cardboard box and watch Terry push a spoonful of cereals after the other into her mouth and still manage to bring out clear sentences. "Weddings are a reason to celebrate. It is the feast of love. «

"You're confusing this with Christmas," I say, but my roommate simply continues, "They celebrate that two soulmates have found each other and swear eternal loyalty to one another."

"Now you sound like Lizzy," I exhale, ignoring how Terry lengthens the ‚e' in eternal.

Soulmate ... that's the very word my sister used four months ago when she told me on the phone that Brad wanted to marry her. At the time, I tried to be happy about this news. I really did. But the words 'wedding' or 'true love' always trigger a kind of allergic reaction within myself that causes my consciousness to declare an emotional quarantine right away.

It's not that I'm not happy for my sister. Not at all. If one deserves a soul mate, eternal faithfulness and everlasting happiness, then it is my sister. It's just that she does not deserve to lose everything again.

I do not know exactly when I started to-

"Don't do that."

I flinch in surprise as Terry's harsh voice stomps through my mind like Godzilla stomps through the streets of San Francisco. Confused, I look over at my roommate, who is still sitting at the counter to our kitchen and raise an eyebrow in bewilderment. "What do you mean?"

"Your Robert de Niro face." Terry swings around in her chair and looks at me, a serious glint in her eyes.

"My what?" Me.

"Whenever you're ill-tempered, you pull your eyebrows together grimmly." Terry and the cargo of Froot loops in her mouth. "Just like Robert-de-Niro."

"I do not."

"Yes, you do."

"You look like E.T .."

"So ... what are you going to do now?"

Yeah, well, my plan… It wasn't that I had a big say in the choice of the clothes for Lizzy's wedding. Sure, my sister had actually declared me to be her maid-of-honor when she was just a little girl and had heard of this tradition for the first time. But helping her to plan the wedding had proved somewhat difficult by the great distance between Washington D.C. , Columbia and Haverford, Pennsylvania. The bride and groom had decided to celebrate the wedding in the place where we grew up and went to school to. Or more specifically, in the garden in front of our dad's house, where we played hide-and-seek, climbed trees or secretly smoked. So I lost my job as the maid-of-honor in a direct duel to Brad's sister Clarice, who lives not far from Lizzy and Brad in Philadelphia. If I had known what dresses Clarice wants us to wear as bridesmaids, I would have not thought tiwce about firing a simple 'Expelliarmus' in her direction. Or just withheld my clothing sizes.

"I think I have to go to Aberdeen," I say thoughtfully. "It's Saturday, is it not?"

"I guess so," Terry replies with a frown. She works seven days a week in a irregular shift service, so she probably wasn't sure for real.

"The others are meeting in the clothing store today. Clarice said I could come too if there was a problem with my dress, that needed changing."

Terry grunts under her towel. "Cath, you'll all wear the same dress as bridesmaids. Theres not a chance you get them to tailor your dress or, god knows, to even color it. "

Two to zero for Terry. Today is not really my day.

Nevertheless, I get up from my chair and search for my purse, while I pull a gray sweater over my head and throw my car keys on the table next to the box.

"Maybe I can at least have the stupid fabric flower cut off," I murmur, pushing the cardboard lid back onto the box with its white silk XXL bow on it. Maybe I can also incite a revolt, and make all the other bridesmaids vote against this dress. "I'll see you tonight."

Terry has turned back to her breakfast and waves goodbye to me like the Queen of England.

With the misshapen cardboard box in both hands, I lean against the doorknob and nearly stumbled over another box in the stairwell. In the narrow hallway in front of me are several square, piled up boxes, half of them on the worn linoleum floor of the stairwell and half of them on the new wooden floorboards of the opposite apartment, kind of giving the impression of being unsure if this should really be their new home.

Our ex-corridor neighbors moved out of the apartment 2B over a month ago and since then potential new tenants have been in and out of this apartment over the last couple of weeks. It seems that Mr. Petcher, our landlord - gray-yellow hair, bulbous nose - has finally found suitable candidates. With luck, they were just as invisible as the two students who had previously lived opposite us. For the entire three hundred and sixty days of them living in the apartment, Terry and I had seen the two men only twice. One time in daylight, which had disproved our theory, the two might be vampires.

The checkered linoleum on the steps squeaks moodily under my soles, as I cautiously overcome one step after the other and go to the large front door through which, in this very moment, a man in a gray shirt and also a moving box in his hands appears. However, he turns around again when he sees me and sprints back to the door to stop it from falling back into the lock. Surprised, I stop at the bottom step of the stairs and look suspiciously at the man, who now puts his box on the floor next to him, in order to keep the door open and stands beside it. I can not remember someone opening a door for me before. Not ever. This is not right.

The young man gives me a friendly look out of his azure blue eyes. His blond short hair is a mix of neatly combed and daringly disheveled, and the way the muscles tense under his shirt as he makes a deft hand movement towards the exit suggests that he is not just attending the beginner's course at the gym. "Miss."

'Miss'…alright ... I can play that way too.

"Thanks, Carson. Do not expect me back soon. I have to make an important appointment in the city, "I say in my best British accent as I step outside, passing him. He pulls his eyebrows together in confusion as I turn to face him again, his eyes wandering rather helplessly than anything else between mine. "Carson?"

"The butler ..." I reply, as if all of this is perfectly logical. I know, in this scenario, I would be an English Landlord, which may be a bit presumptuous, but ...

The man still looks at me incomprehensibly. He almost looks like a little boy who had just been told that he could never become an astronaut. Or president. Or superhero.

"The butler from 'Downton Abbey' ...?" I try one last time to help him on the jumps, before I realize slowly but surely that this normal-almost-romantic-scene is on the verge of changing to an embarrassing-from-now-on-he-will-give-me-the-funny-eyebrow-everytime-he-sees-me-situation. Sometimes I just forget that not everyone is spending their days watching series.

"Sooo ...", I lengthen the 'so' in this sentence and swing almost rhythmically up and down with my heels. "So you moved to the apartment on the second floor?"

The blond man throws one last scrutinizing look at me and the giant bow in my hands before nodding slightly and pointing to the moving box on the floor. "Yeah, um, I'm about to get my things in the apartment." He puts one hand on his neck and smiles lightly at me. "So you also live in this house?"

I pull up my right shoulder briefly to protect the straps of my handbag from falling and nod affirmatively. "That's right, Apartment 2A. I guess I'm your new neighbor."

I can not quite interpret whether the young man at the door is excited about this prospect or not. His mouth is set with a polite smile, but it is one of the kind that does not quite manage to reflect itself in his eyes. One of the kind that I like to put on.

Carefully, I slide the cardboard box onto my left forearm and stretch out my right hand. "Cath."

The blond takes a step towards me, which makes the door in his back fall back into its lock with a squeak and stretches his muscular forearm in my direction as well. His palm feels rough and soft at the same time and as I look up from our hands to his blue eyes and his angular featured face, strangely enough, I notice how carefully shaved his chin is.

"Nice to meet you," he replies, smiling, and the whiteness of his teeth makes me wish I had cleaned mine more carefully this morning. "Steve."

* * *

**Note: Hey everyone :) welcome to this Steve Rogers-finds-love-and-doesn't-know-it-until-chapter-20-something-story^^ This Story is set between the first Avengers movie and Captain America:Winter Soldier (and is actually a translation of my german Fanfic. So I hope my english doesn't suck as much as I think it does (I tried it anyway;) ). Hope you like it!:)**


	3. Bubble Gums and other Insipidities

**Bubble Gums and other Insipidities**

"Johnson & Merryweather, IT, Connors on the phone. How may I help you?"

Bored, I wrap the old-fashioned telephone cord around my left index finger and continue chewing on the much too bland chewing gum in my mouth, which after only three minutes had lost the taste of 'Bubblicious Blueberry' - as advertised on the packaging - and only tastes 'Bubblicious' instead. What a disappointment.

The silence that follows my words on the other end of the line almost seems like I had loudly shouted 'surprise' into the receiver. Or 'McDonalds, please place your order.'. As if the caller himself wasn't so sure why his fingers had just dialed this number. Then:

"Yeah, um ... Taylor here. I would like to speak to Mr. Merryweather. "

"Of course, one moment please."

Cumbersome, I push my chair away from the edge of my desk and lean on its armrests, trying to peer across the computer screen into my bosses office. Why this office was ever set up, remains as much a mystery as the construction of the stone statues on the Easter Island. I've never seen my boss stay in this office - actually on the entire floor - for more than half an hour. Really thinking about it, my boss was the Blueberry among the department head bubble gums. Hardly there, gone again.

Even now, a yawning emptiness greats me glancing between the open double doors of the office room and I let myself flop back into my chair. _I'm sorry, sir. Mr. Merryweather is having lunch for the seventh time this day._

"I'm sorry, sir. Mr. Merryweather is in an important meeting right now. Can I help you? "

"No, no ... that's all right." The man on the other end of the line sounds almost relieved. Understandable. "Then I'll try again tomorrow."

He hangs up with a loud clack and the aggressive sounding rings in my ear. _Oh no, of course, Mr. Taylor. Yes, I wish you a nice evening, too. Oh yes, thank you, I often hear that my voice sounds like that of an angel. Do they miss me in heaven? Mr. Taylor ... you charmer!_

Grunting I hang up the phone and roll closer to my desk, on which several stacks of paper and loose sticky notes argue for the supremacy of orderly chaos. With the back of my hand, I push the pile of papers to one side and get a look on my monitors flickering screensaver. The tiny specks of dust magically attracted to its surface gleam innocently in the light of the sun rays, or dance across the keyboard in the same dark yellow light of Washingtons evening sun.

A glance at my watch tells me that I could finish work in a few minutes.

"It's still a mystery to me how you can keep track of this mess." The sudden voice in my back makes me jump.

Ben.

My best joker grin on my lips, I turn around. "Chaos? I'm an agent of chaos. "And at my next words, I raise an eyebrow meaningfully. "And you know the thing about chaos?"

Ben's brown eyes sparkle with amusement before he drops into the chair on the other side of my desk and answers with the same deep voice, "It's fair."

Grinning, he reaches for my red koosh ball, which apparently lay behind the thick pile of paper next to my computer screen and throws it in the air above his head. "Please, Cath. Swap the desk with Jim - he's boring. He knows no movie quotes."

"I heard that!" Jim.

"You should!" Ben.

Smiling, I glance over my shoulder at the desks a few rows away on the other side of the, at this time virtually empty, open-plan office and give Jim a knowing smile. The glasses of the black-haired man reflect the bluish light of his monitor and disguise the playful piqued expression in his eyes, but his lips show a slight smile.

I turn away and just see Ben leaning forward conspiratorially. "I'm serious-all he can say is ‚I carried a watermelon'."

Amused, I watch as my colleague grins back and continues to throw the ball and catch it again. His forehead - including brown eyes, Owen-Wilson nose, dark brown hipster beard - is furrowed in concentration and his red checkered shirt throws rebellious wrinkles every time he raises his arm. Suddenly he points with his free hand on my phone. "Did Merryweather accidentally turn you into his secretary, again?"

"Accidentally? He does it deliberately ... "I snort. Normally, all calls to Mr. Merryweather would be routed directly to his office phone. Only when he was not in the office could he divert them to one of the phones in the department.

"How likely is it, that he accidentally picks my speed dial every time? There are about twenty people working on this floor. "Accusingly, I pop a bubble of gum in front of my mouth.

"I've never been good in probability calculations." Ben grins at the red ball in his hands and pats it thoughtfully between his fingers, like some kind of anti-stress ball. "Listen, Cath ... about the wedding…"

"Oh, no!" I shout in supplication rather than annoyance, almost choking on my chewing gum. "Don't you dare call this off now!"

I just couldn't use another punch in the stomach right now. Having already had no success on the fabric flower front in Aberdeen on Saturday convincing the other bridesmaids that the dress is rubbish ("These dresses are fabulous, Clarice!" "You've outdone yourself with this selection."). I cannot lose my date now, too.

"Cath, I ..." Ben.

"Ben, please ... the dress looks like I want to act in High School Musical, and if I show up there without a date ..." Desperate self.

"Amanda doesn't want it."

"... who is Amanda?"

For an outsider, it must sound like my fiancé was just telling me that he was cheating on me. With Amanda. Which is complete nonsense, of course.

Ben and I have known each other since our first semester at university and it was never more than just friendship between us. Apart from that, we both aren't the type for a committed relationship. Ben even less than me. Well, at least I thought so. Until now.

"You met her at O'Briens three weeks ago." Ben looks at me, out of his brown eyes, as if he expected me to know all of his '' conquests '' over the last few years, by name and address.

"I didn't know it was so serious between you," I finally reply, discretely spitting my chewing gum into the wastebasket next to my desk.

Ben scratches his head in embarrassment when he replies mumbling, "Well, it is ... anyway ... I can not go to the wedding with you."

"Oh, come on." By this time, I feel like a little whining child, who desperately wants to watch an episode oft the Teletubbies. And then again. "It's only four days. You can tell Amanda that she does not have to worry, I'm not going to attack you ... or anything like that. "I get chills only thinking about it.

"I know ... but ..." I feel almost sorry for the way he's sitting in front of me, crudely and guiltily, like a crumpled up eco-paper bag. But only almost.

"May I remind you that I've played your fake girlfriend three times already? You owe me."

"Oh no!" Ben shakes his head vigorously. "If anything, you owe me. Do you know how long I've had to hear from my dad that I'm an idiot for "breaking up" with you? "He makes little air quotes with his fingers and then rubs a finger over the bridge of his nose. "Every time I visit him and Mom, he asks me if we are maybe getting back together."

I have to grin inevitably. "Your Dad is great."

Ben glares at me.

"But you owe me for the second time," I say quickly. "My hair stank of that sticky green stuff for weeks." I mumble at the memory of St. Patrick's Day two years ago, before adding, "And your reunion last year."

"That doesn't count either." Ben leans forward again slightly and strokes his chin-beard. "You had a lot more fun than I did."

"Not at all." I try to suppress a grin.

"You've told nearly all of the guests that you've just returned from an expedition to the North Pole."

"It was scary how many people believed me."

"That it was."

"So?" With big, sad eyes, I look over the pile of white paper in Ben's direction. If he had to cancel, then at least he should have a guilty conscience.

Ben looks up from his hands, as if hoping for a fire alarm test run. "Cath, I'm sorry. I want to do it right with Amanda this time. "

_Great!_ So Ben decided to become Prince Charming all of a sudden.

"Well let me know when you find your manhood again," I murmur, shoving the pile of papers back in front of the screen. That was mean and I know that. And not very creative. But I will not let him get away that easy.

From the other corner of the office, a faint giggle that sounds suspiciously like Jim's hovers over to us.

"Ouch ..." Ben pretends to rub his cheek before his face suddenly becomes expertly serious and he puts the koosh ball back on my desk, his gaze flicking past me lightly.

"What?" I ask, putting a playfull horrified hand over my mouth and whispering, "Do not say that your manhood is right behind me?"

Ben gives me a quick grin before he gets up and nods behind me. "Mr. Merryweather. "

"Mr. Peters. "Already the subliminally annoyed voice of our boss blarts through the office, accompanied by a cloud of omnipresent masculine fragrance that could stand up to any perfumery. He nods in my direction. "Connors. I diverted my calls to your phone. I hope you did not have a problem with that. "

"Oh no. Of course not. "I shake my head vehemently and can barely keep my hands from jerking up like I'm in some sort of a robbery a gun pointed right at my head. "I-"

"Good." Mr. Merryweather taps the keyboard of his Blackberry with his oversized hands and walks past us toward his office.

"_Of course not_, yes?" Ben is standing next to me, grinning as if he'd just caught me sneaking a candy bar out of my pocket while dieting.

"Oh, shut up." Defeated, I lean back in my chair and look toward the ceiling, the gloomy gray of which seems to speak from my soul.

"Oh, that reminds me." Ben taps his foot against the back of my chair, causing me to protest with a moan. "If you find my manhood, you're welcome to keep it. It seems to me you need it more than I do."

"Ouch ...," I grumble, while Ben moves back to his desk with a big grin in his face, throwing his bag over his shoulder.

I could use another bubble gum.

* * *

**Another chapter out of Caths point of view to get to know the main character better. In the next chapter I'll dare to change it to Steves point of view. Have a nice Weekend!:)**


	4. Ponytails and other Tactlessnesses

**Ponytails and other tactlessnesses**

The blond hair strands of the runner in front of him bobbed from one side to the other with every step she took. They swung back and forth like the mechanical pendulum of an old clock in front of her narrow neck, giving Steve a strangely insuring tact.

_Right, left, right, left, right, left ..._

It was a fast rhythm. Much faster than his own heartbeat.

That was probably why he kept his eyes mesmerized on the young woman's braid some twenty yards away, though he knew that was not exactly charming.

He needed it. Needed something to cling to; that was able to tie his thoughts a bit and help him to ignore how slowly everything about himself was behaving. His own pulse. His breathing. The non commiting fatigue in his muscles.

The woman in front of him was gaining speed. Her pink-and-blue striped sneakers picked up small drops of water from the wet asphalt behind her, tapping lightly on the pavement with each step. Steve adapted to the new tact, though he knew that the woman would not hold it for much longer. It was her final spurt.

_Right, left, right ..._

He felt the fine fabric of his T-shirt tighten around his shoulder blades as he moved his arms to the new rhythm beside his upper body. Not fast enough.

_Right, left..._

The fine, blond strands of her hair paused in midair, collapsing like surging ocean waves, before they came to rest above the hem of the woman's top. Exhausted, she rested her arms on her thighs and spinned her head, circling her neck. When Steve ran past her, he could see the steady lifting and lowering of her rib cage that ran through her entire body and showed itself in the fresh morning air in small, perishable clouds in front of her mouth.

Steve increased his pace.

He couldn't remember the last time he was really out of breath. A time he would have felt a heaviness in his legs that would have forced him to stop. A time his heart had jumped wildly in his chest, about to explode.  
_When was the last time he had felt alive?_

Sure, the Chitauri Loki had ordered to New York had demanded everything from his team and himself. Had brought him to the limits of his own powers. But, by the end of the day, he had felt nothing more than a little tweak in his right side. At the end of the day he had laid himself in his much too soft bed, staring at the dark gray, almost circular, spots on his ceiling - the aftermath of a water damage – and had thought about everything that felt like nothing.

Sometimes he wondered if Erskine was aware of the extent his serum would have. Would he be proud of what he had created? Proud of the soldier Steve has become - a super soldier whose body regenerated within minutes? And would he be proud of the man behind the shield, sitting in his flat on a wobbly folding chair and gazing silently into the void? Of the man whose thoughts were caught in a time he could no longer reach; in a time that had sank into dry parchment like liquid ink?

_Honor, courage, loyalty, sacrifice._

Erskine chose him then because he had seen all these qualities in him. Him, Steve, the slender boy from Brooklyn.

Most of the time, Steve managed not to think about the years before all of this. It was easy, when he was on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D.. When he could direct his thoughts to a goal he wanted to achieve. _Had to_ achieve. But as soon as the mission was over, his thoughts caught up with him again. They were not always visible, but they were always there. Like his own shadow. At those hours, when the light shone on his broad body, Steve envied the puny boy he once was. The boy who almost couldn't get into his own cot with exhaustion and had, most of the evenings, slipped into a dreamless sleep.

Time heals all wounds, that's what they say. Then again time was relative. Steve remembered a theory that a German scientist had set up before his birth. He was pretty sure that the physicist had not referred to this sentence, but at the moment it seemed plausible to him.

Perhaps he should really find himself a hobby, as Agent Romanoff always suggested.

He could start drawing again.

Or play the trumpet.

Steve set off for his final round at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. At this time of the day he hardly met other people. His watery reflection was the only runner who jogged beside him and was in no way inferior to Steve's pace. The fresh morning air was caught in his lungs, burning like strong alcohol in his throat and then again not. He felt the wind stroking through his blond hair and whipped his palms into the air beside him. He almost thought he sensed something like a hot burning sensation in the muscles of his thighs, but it faded as quickly as it had come.

It was much easier to focus on his body than his thoughts.

So much easier.

* * *

The checkered linoleum floor squeaked slightly under his damp soles and Steve shifted his weight a bit to nip that sound in the bud - even if it felt somewhat homey. It reminded him of the olden days. More like the barren corridors of even bleaker hospitals, but the olden days nevermind.

Lost in thoughts, he rummaged the slender apartment key out of his trouser pockets before a sound in his back made him turn around.

The apartment door behind him was opened with a wooden plow and spat out a ravel of tangled, brown hair and dark green fabric to the hall.

Panting, Cath blew a wet strand of hair out of her field of vision. "Oh, hey."

Her eyes looked as if she could barely keep them open and yet they were way too wide open at the same time.

Steve noticed that she was looking at the gray fabric of his T-shirt around his navel longer than he cared for before they found his face. He resisted the urge to fold his arms insecurly in front of his chest and instead smiled slightly obliquely. "Good Morning."

The bundle in her hands, full of various keys, made an iron-clipped sound as Cath turned around and made one of them disappear into the keyhole of her apartment door. She looked over her shoulder in his direction. "So, you're going for a run?"

Steve nodded at the key in his right hand. "Actually, I'm just getting back from my lap."

The slender lips of his new neighbor twisted into an amused grin as she eyed him slightly skeptical. "You're kidding me - you look like you've just changed your clothes." She made a sweeping gesture in front of her body, as if she were a show girl in the circus. "Look at me. I've been running frantically in my apartment for five minutes, looking like I've done a hundred-kilometer marathon. "

Steve had to smile slightly at Cath's words. She actually looked a bit tired. Her hair - probably still wet from the shower - hung in solitary strands in her face or stood confusedly above her forehead, as if she had pulled her shirt over her head in a hurry. The pale green seams of the shirt ran visibly along her narrow shoulders and the outsides of her upper arms, so that Steve wasn't sure if that effect was wanted or if she just wore the shirt the wrong way around. He could not say for sure with the fashion nowadays. A scarlet touch graced her upper cheekbones, as if she had been running for minutes against some icy wind and her sea-green eyes reminded him of the leaves of the trees in the National Mall Park. He wondered if her eyes had been so green when they first met. They were still looking at him, a bright sparkle among all this leafage.

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. "Thirty kilometers. Maximum."

Snorting, she stowed the keychain in her shoulder bag and lifted the strap over her head. "Well, there's still one more kilometer to go," she grunted. "I'll definitely have to run to the nearest tube station if I want to be in the office before my boss is." She made a slight grimace with her mouth before she added resignedly, "It's just impossible to get out of bed in time. I don't know how everybody does it."

_I don't have this problem_, Steve added in his thoughts almost melancholy, but forced himself to smile understandingly.

His new neighbor took a deep breath, as if she was taking it before an exhausting dive, and then headed for the stairs at the end of the hall. "See you."

Steve nodded and had already turned the key to his door when something else occurred to him.

"I don't look like Carson at all," he shouted after Cath and only then, as the words swung back from the dark concrete walls in the hallway, did he realize how strange their echo sounded. He bit his lower lip lightly.

"What?" Cath had turned around, one hand resting on the banister, the other wrapped around the belt of her bag.

"The butler," Steve added quickly. "I googled him on the Internet." He hoped it was what they said. "I don't look like him at all."

Steve didn't know why he had to get rid of that information in the hallway. Or at all. Actually, he still didn't know much about this fictional character other than he was an olderly man.

Cath's contracted eyebrows settled into a more relaxed position and the corners of her mouth jerked up briefly. "No, you don't."

She let her hand slide over the banister and Steve thought he heard her mumble to herself over her screeching soles, „Oh no, not at all."

His new neighbor shook her head as if to scare off an annoying insect and continued down the stairs to the front door. She took two steps at once.

Steve turned the key in his door lock and pushed the knob down spiritlessly. The new wooden floor shone slightly under his jogging shoes and absorbed the wet marks of his soles, like a canvas some applied paint. He dropped himself on the wobbly folding chair in his living room and opened the blue shoelaces of his sneakers with his numb fingers.

He _definitely_ needed a hobby.

* * *

**Thanks for reading and adding this story to your alert-lists :) hope you liked this little piece of Steves mind. The following chapters will get longer each time, promise. Have a nice weekend :)**


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